Furious about botched alignment and damage

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by RA1

Makes sense but about 6x the normal rate? The write up for the car stated that the alignment was visibly off. There are loads of people who installed springs much shorter than mine on this forum who report no uneven/strange tire wear after installing actual lowering springs up to 1-1.5 inches.

A lot of how and where the vehicle was driven comes into play; lowered cars that are not really pushed hard tend not to see the impact to the same level, cars driven harder, or tracked, it shows up more pronounced. Type of tire (durometer value of the rubber) also comes into play as softer tires are always going to wear faster, particularly in hot climates. Another comment would be how well it was aligned after you first lowered it; little things combine to count for a lot in this area.......

[RA1]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

A lot of how and where the vehicle was driven comes into play; lowered cars that are not really pushed hard tend not to see the impact to the same level, cars driven harder, or tracked, it shows up more pronounced. Type of tire (durometer value of the rubber) also comes into play as softer tires are always going to wear faster, particularly in hot climates. Another comment would be how well it was aligned after you first lowered it; little things combine to count for a lot in this area.......

Sure. but don't you think it's most likely they just didn't fix the alignment issue? There's no way that they did a thorough alignment if they let the car leave with the camber and toe in that the car has now. Or at least without saying anything about it on the way out. I'd be surprised if they did an alignment on the car at all.

[Gilles]

Originally Posted by RA1

on the way out. I'd be surprised if they did an alignment on the car at all.

It seems very probable, and will explain the same exact wear on the new tires..

[78F350]

The shops I've used always present a chart after completing the alignment and explain if they encountered any problems. Did this shop have any discussion other than the tires needing to be replaced?
Sample of a chart:

[husker boxster]

I can't say how much negative camber you can put into a stock 986, but in a 987 it's around -1.5 deg. Should prob be the same on the 986 since they use similar components. IF that same amt could be done as positive camber, 1.5 deg is not going to be enough to overcome the neg camber YOU'VE created with your lowered springs. With stock suspension components, the shop can only do so much and it won't be enough to get camber back to specs.

Rather than blaming that shop for something they did 2yrs ago, you need to decide what your next move is - go back to stock springs or find a shop that's done race alignments. If you choose the latter, there may be parts necessary to get it into the neighborhood of reasonable, like a camber plate. And if you do get the tire sitting upright, will it be rubbing on the fender?

And if you leave neg camber in, you will NEVER get 30K mi out of a set of tires. I have GT3 control arms on the front of my Cayman S Sport with -2.3 deg camber. With stock setup, I could go thru 2 sets of rears to 1 set of fronts in 30K mi. With the GT3 arms and camber, I now wear the fronts and rears out at the same rate - around 15K mi. But my 15K mi worn out fronts don't even look close to your 4K mi fronts, so you have WAY more camber than -2.3 in yours. Like I said earlier, chances are with stock components your alignment shop couldn't come close to getting your car w/in specs.

[RA1]

Originally Posted by husker boxster

I can't say how much negative camber you can put into a stock 986, but in a 987 it's around -1.5 deg. Should prob be the same on the 986 since they use similar components. IF that same amt could be done as positive camber, 1.5 deg is not going to be enough to overcome the neg camber YOU'VE created with your lowered springs. With stock suspension components, the shop can only do so much and it won't be enough to get camber back to specs.

Rather than blaming that shop for something they did 2yrs ago, you need to decide what your next move is - go back to stock springs or find a shop that's done race alignments. If you choose the latter, there may be parts necessary to get it into the neighborhood of reasonable, like a camber plate. And if you do get the tire sitting upright, will it be rubbing on the fender?

And if you leave neg camber in, you will NEVER get 30K mi out of a set of tires. I have GT3 control arms on the front of my Cayman S Sport with -2.3 deg camber. With stock setup, I could go thru 2 sets of rears to 1 set of fronts in 30K mi. With the GT3 arms and camber, I now wear the fronts and rears out at the same rate - around 15K mi. But my 15K mi worn out fronts don't even look close to your 4K mi fronts, so you have WAY more camber than -2.3 in yours. Like I said earlier, chances are with stock components your alignment shop couldn't come close to getting your car w/in specs.

Ok, so this very well may be the case, and I'm not saying you're wrong. However this is the problem. It is the shops responsibility to bring issue's like that to my attention. If I was told that it wasn't possible to get the camber back into spec on the stock suspension components, then no problem, I would've gone home and ordered the necessary parts and brought it back so the alignment could have been done properly. BEFORE I ripped through a set of tires in 4k miles. Whether I created the issue or not, it's not my responsibility any more when the shop tells me that the car is in good alignment and is good to go.

[husker boxster]

Originally Posted by RA1

Ok, so this very well may be the case, and I'm not saying you're wrong. However this is the problem. It is the shops responsibility to bring issue's like that to my attention. If I was told that it wasn't possible to get the camber back into spec on the stock suspension components, then no problem, I would've gone home and ordered the necessary parts and brought it back so the alignment could have been done properly. BEFORE I ripped through a set of tires in 4k miles. Whether I created the issue or not, it's not my responsibility any more when the shop tells me that the car is in good alignment and is good to go.

And I don't disagree with what you said, but expecting some sort of retribution when you don't have a recept (data sheet) AND it was 2 yrs ago is wasted energy. If you bring this up to them and they offer some good will discount on your next alignment, that will prob be the best you'll be able to do. But if they're a shady merchant to begin with, is that who you want to deal with? And there's no way they're going to buy you 2 new tires. It was 2 yrs ago. No way they can guarantee an alignment for 2 yrs and how do they know you didn't just put that worn set on last wk? So again, expecting to be made whole from them is wasted energy.

Focus your energy on finding a better shop. Tell them what you've done so they can go in with an eye towards your situation. Then see what they can do or what they recommend for fixes.

Where do you find a better shop? If you don't already have an idea, ask members of your local Porsche club. Ask the DE folks in your club. Or ask here on the forum. Someone in your area may have a suggestion.

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by RA1

Sure. but don't you think it's most likely they just didn't fix the alignment issue? There's no way that they did a thorough alignment if they let the car leave with the camber and toe in that the car has now. Or at least without saying anything about it on the way out. I'd be surprised if they did an alignment on the car at all.

Without records, you have no evidence of that.